See how volunteers built a playground in hours for a Pasadena ISD school

By Yvette Orozco, STAFF WRITER

Updated
4:35 pm CST, Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Some 250 volunteers from Atkinson Elementary School, Pasadena ISD and the Pasadena community swarm a site where the national nonprofit group KaBoom! built a playground for the Atkinson campus.

Some 250 volunteers from Atkinson Elementary School, Pasadena ISD and the Pasadena community swarm a site where the national nonprofit group KaBoom! built a playground for the Atkinson campus.

Photo: Pin Lim, Freelance / For The Chronicle

Photo: Pin Lim, Freelance / For The Chronicle

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Some 250 volunteers from Atkinson Elementary School, Pasadena ISD and the Pasadena community swarm a site where the national nonprofit group KaBoom! built a playground for the Atkinson campus.

Some 250 volunteers from Atkinson Elementary School, Pasadena ISD and the Pasadena community swarm a site where the national nonprofit group KaBoom! built a playground for the Atkinson campus.

Photo: Pin Lim, Freelance / For The Chronicle

See how volunteers built a playground in hours for a Pasadena ISD school

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After becoming principal of Atkinson Elementary School in 1995, Lena Ortiz had three stated goals to achieve at the campus before she retires: she wanted her school to have a track, a new playground, and an electronic marquee.

Track, check; new playground, check.

Two out of three is a good place to be for Ortiz.

Over 200 volunteers recently made it out on a cool, crisp Saturday morning to build some playtime space for students at one of Pasadena ISD’s oldest elementary schools.

It was a long process, but Atkinson now has a new playground as a result of a partnership between KaBOOM! and the Rebuild Texas Fund to help restore Texas communities affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Atkinson is more than 50 years old and has not had a playground for nearly 20 years, and so bright colors, some bars and zigzagging slides have given the school a fresh look and attitude.

Richard Whittaker, the school’s coach of mathematics, and Atkinson special education teacher Kim Grzsiek learned about the KaBOOM!/Rebuild Texas Fund while researching ways to have a playground built at the school. It was a long process, but worth it, Whittaker said.

“We had to provide data such as demographics, site information, and information about how Hurricane Harvey impacted our school,” Whittaker said.

“The district does a tremendous job of providing resources for its students and staff, but when you couple that with the support of external organizations and businesses like KaBOOM!, that make projects like this possible,” Whittaker said. “The environmentally resilient nature area that was provided is certainly a benefit that we wouldn’t have received without outside funding.”

KaBOOM! is a national nonprofit which promotes the benefits of playtime for young children by awarding grants to school districts.

Atkinson’s old playground was taken out approximately 18 years ago due to age and the lack of funding for repairs and updates.

“Without their project management and funding sources our play space wouldn’t become a reality,” Whittaker said.

Starting at 9 a.m., parents, school staff and other community volunteers built the KaBOOM! playground from the ground up in about five hours. One teacher recorded a time-lapse video to show the build from start to finish.

“You are fearful that people won’t show up because it was a Saturday and people have things to do on Saturday; so it was amazing to see,” said Ortiz. “There was nothing out there, but by the end of the day it was all there.”

Part of the Kaboom process is giving students a chance to help map out the design and ideas on what they want their playground to look like.

“The level of excitement for this project has been building for months,” Whittaker said. “We had an unbelievable turnout on Saturday, and everyone worked extremely hard for their new play space.”

Saturday’s build was also a pilot program for a green-space component to the playground: an outdoor classroom, planter boxes for students to grow things and 19 new native trees and a “weather station.”

“Not only do our students benefit from a great playground, our students can exercise and enjoy the outdoors from and environmental perspective,” Whittaker said.

The community came through, said Ortiz.

“This community is one that I have felt blessed to be a part of and am amazed how supportive they have been in everything we do,” she said.